Hot Wednesday

When I went up for coffee this morning, I was struck by how hot and humid it already was at 9:00.  After coffee we played 4 games of shuffleboard.  I only got to play 2 games...I let other people play when it comes down to me or them...darn it, anyway.  I won both of my games, but the rest of the redbirds didn't hold up their end of the bargain.  The bluebirds went up 2 more games so now they lead us by 6 games.

Tonight Lulu and I were partners but we got beat...:(.

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B & B

I didn't bowl again today.  I'm still resting my hip and my knee.  I'm pretty sure I could have bowled, but I didn't have anyone to do the money when we got there, so I just sat out and took care of the business end of bowling.  This afternoon while Dave went to the dentist, I just played games!

I had a good night at bingo!  I bingo'd 3 times - $10, $12, and $37.50!  Pretty good night!

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Monday

I got lots done today, even if I didn't hardly move from my chair!  I finished the newsletter and the calendar for January and got them sent to the Office.  I also got caught up on all of the recipes I have on hand.  I went through the Christmas card list and updated addresses.  By the time I got up (at 9:30), Dave had taken down all of the Christmas lights.  So we got all of Christmas put away for the year!  I also got all of my bowling records updated and I got the receipts turned in for the Christmas dinner.  I also swept all of the floors and resized pictures that I sent to Jami and to Tammy for the directory.  Whew!!

Tonight I went up to play cards, but there was 1 person too many so I drew the high card and went home.

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Sunday

At church this morning, I learned some things that I'd never thought of before.  I love that we get challenged in our thinking.  When you read the story of Jesus' birth, you are led to believe that the wise men followed the star and found a baby, when in reality it says they found the child.  It would have taken then about 2 years to get to where Jesus was.  Joseph & Mary went to Egypt after Jesus was born...he would have written in the Egyptian language.  We also learned about our spiritual journey being in 4 steps...with the bottom one being unconscious incompetency. The next step up is conscious incompetency.  Most all of us are in those 2 steps.  Very good sermon.

After church we met Sudi & Howard at JD's for breakfast/brunch.  Good food and great company.  There's nothing like good friends!  This afternoon I worked on the January newsletter.  I'm pretty much done - I just need to get some input from Sandy before wrapping it up.

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Ho Ho Ho

Today was a fritter-the-day away kind of day!  I didn't sleep last night until about 4:00 am so I took a nap today.  I actually wanted to just stay in my jammies and do nothing all day, but instead I called and got an appointment to have a pedicure.  I was long overdue for one, so that was good!  The rest of the day was pretty much wasted!  I'll make up for it another day.

Tonight my family was having Christmas so I called and got to talk to Bob, Linda, Rhonda, Vicki, Kaylee, Kyle, Cheyenne, and Allison - glad I got to do that!!

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Merry Christmas

Whew!  We made it through the last 48 hours!  Yesterday we picked up all of the"ingredients" for our big Christmas dinner.  I fixed all of the chicken breasts by rolling them in alfredo sauce and then in bread crumbs.  We had 60 chicken breasts in our refrigerator...yum!!  We delivered the potatoes and veggies to everyone who was helping cook.  Then we put a meatloaf in the oven for Christmas Eve dinner with a select group of friends...30 to be exact!  We ate a wonderful meal (lots of Italian dishes) and then we played a combination of Pictionary and Charades!  Lots of fun!  Then we had a Yankee Swap gift exchange!  When we finished all of that we finished setting up for tonight's event!

I love the saying of 7 P's...Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance...and that's exactly how I feel about our Christmas dinner.  It was properly planned so it went of without a hitch.  Everyone loved the meal and lots of people stayed around to help us clean up afterwards.  Lots of fun!

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Wednesday

I guess I missed a couple of days of blogging!  I didn't realize it at all.  Monday we rode bikes and also sorted all of the Christmas cards for the park residents and delivered them.

We also played dominoes - Danny won!  Jami dreamed on Sunday night about beef and noodles, so that's what we had for supper that night.  After supper we went to the park so the kids could play on the playground equipment.  When they finished, we walked around the park looking at the Christmas lights.

Tuesday morning after breakfast we went to Sarasota to see Roberta.  We ate lunch up at her pool while Jami had a conference call in her car!  Then we went back to Roberta's and helped her make peanut clusters and clean our her shed.  After that Jami and the kids went back to Ft Lauderdale and we came back home.  I went to bingo where I won $10...I spend $9.50 so I actually only won 50 cents!  But I'm still ahead for the year!

Tomorrow we  pick up all of the food stuff for Christmas day, then we'll deliver it to the people who are going to cook the various dishes.  We also do the set up of the hall and then tomorrow night we're going to the clubhouse for a Christmas Eve party hosted by Rich and Sandy.  I'm making a meatloaf for that and Dave picked up a couple of gifts for the gift exchange.

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Sat & Sunday

We've had a fun weekend.  Since it was pretty cold yesterday, we did a bunch of inside activities.  We did go outside to ride bikes, but since we about froze, we read, tried to put together a puzzle (we failed), and then last night after the kids' favorite meals we taught them how to play Farkle!  Kelly was unconscious!  She won big time.  Today we went to church, then went to the Legion for lunch out on the water.  It was remarkably nice there today!  We even got to see dolphins!  This afternoon, we took naps, read, ate, and then this evening after s'mores we played Farkle again.  That Kelly is undefeated.  She's getting a little cocky!

Now we're watching Elf!  What a funny movie!  Two of the kids have crashed, but the rest of us are going strong!

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Friday

It's Friday already and today it rained most of the morning...we had an inch of rain!  We really needed the rain, though.  Jami and the kids are here for a few days.  We'll be doing some fun things so I may not always be able to blog.

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Whew!

We got lots done today.  I even got to sleep in because Dave went to church to help the grounds crew mow and clean up...they do this every Thursday!  Dave and I then went in search of groceries for our Christmas dinner.  We have a budget of $400 and we've got almost everything except for dinner rolls, tomatoes for the salads, and a cheese sauce for the broccoli/cauliflower.  We even got wine, tablecloths, napkins, and placemats.  We'll pick most of it up on Christmas eve day, which is good because Jami and the kids are coming here tomorrow night until Tuesday when we go to Sarasota with them to see Roberta.

Tomorrow we sweep the floors and dust and then we're ready for guests.

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Big day!

This morning, after coffee, we had our annual cookie exchange.  Anyone who wants to can make cookies then you pay $3/pound to buy cookies...it's a great way to get a variety of cookies for the holidays.  This afternoon we shuffled two games.  It was really hot.  I had sweat going down my face into my eyes, but I won my game!  In the first set of games, the bluebirds won all but one game and in the second set, the redbirds won all of the games.  Redbirds made up 2 games, but we're still behind.

Also this afternoon, a funny thing happened.  A tree frog had decided to sit on my bike, so I tried to get him to move.  He moved all right, to another place on my bike.  In fact, he just kept jumping from one place to another.  So Dave came to help me get rid of him.  Dave tried to grab him and he peed on Dave...twice!!  So Dave had to go wash his hands before we could take our bike ride!

Tonight Lorraine and I beat Marilyn and Pat at cards.

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Tuesday

Because my hip still hurts, I didn't bowl today.  I went and did the money, etc....which was a first for me.  I have never just sat and watched.  It's much more fun to actually bowl than to watch.  We only had 12 bowlers today.  After bowling, we went to PJ's for lunch.

After lunch, we came home and baked chocolate chip cookies for tomorrow's cookie walk.  The house smells really, really good!!

I didn't win anything at bingo tonight...:(.  Bummer!  I was close...double bummer!

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Monday

Today we saw another beautiful day.  We finished all of our Christmas cards for residents here in the park.  We'll gather everyone's cards and play mailmen on the 22nd.  Hope the kids can help us before they leave...they had fun doing this last year!  Since we got this job done, we now have our kitchen table cleaned off again so the house looks better!  The only problem is all of the glitter on the floor and on the furniture!  Our cards didn't have much glitter on them, but there sure seems to be a ton of it on the floor.

My team won tonight at cards!

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Sunday

This was another beautiful day in the 'hood!  We went to the traditional service at church because we wanted to hear the choir's cantata.  It was beautiful!  The whole message was the music - very powerful...they even have an orchestra!

We came home after church, ate lunch, and then worked on Christmas cards for the park residents.  Since we were having a ham & bean dinner tonight, we soaked and slow cooked soup beans all day.  Then late this afternoon, we made 2 pans of cornbread too.  The residents from the midwest were excited to see "our" kind of ham & beans...the east coast people hadn't ever had Great Northern beans the way we do them.  Interesting,,,

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It's Christmas time

In between riding bikes and spending time with my brother, we worked on Christmas cards.  We got them addressed and got them stuffed.  There are 2 or 3 left to write a note in, but other than that they're reading to mail out on Monday.  Tomorrow, hopefully, we'll get the ones for the park ready, too.  That's a huge undertaking because we know a bunch of people here!  Ann gave me hers tonight so we'll get theirs and ours sorted into streets and we'll have a great start!

We said goodbye to Bob & Ann for about 3 weeks.  They fly out early in the morning for Iowa.  We'll miss them.  Dave and Bob spend a lot of time together.

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Fun day!

We went to the beach early this morning to board the Tropics Dolphin Tour boat.  We were supposed to be a part of a photo shoot for their new advertising campaign.  Dave saw this online somewhere and thought it would be something we would enjoy.  As it turned out we were in the wrong place, so we hurried downtown Clearwater to the Harborview area.  We boarded the Clearwater Ferry for several hours of a photo shoot.  The side advantage was we got to ride a boat all morning and into the afternoon.  It was a perfect day for being on the water.  Not only that, but we're getting free tickets for the Tropics Dolphin Tour boat just for helping them out.  Fun time!

Cards weren't so much fun tonight.  We got beat by about 2300 pts!  Oh well.

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Oh my goodness!

I knew that tonight's Iowa-Iowa State basketball game would be a good one...I just didn't have the script written quite the way it happened.  I figured it would be a close ball game, not a blowout by Iowa.  I planned on Hilton Magic, but I didn't know how it could erase a 20 point deficit.  Now I'm a real believer...and so proud of that basketball team.  It would have been so easy to just roll over and play dead down 20 points, but they never gave up.  They just kept on fighting.  Way to go Cyclones!

Our day was kind of uneventful before the game.  We did take Bob & Ann down to the Post Corner.  Ann thought we should have one more Post Corner pizza before they went back to Iowa.  The sunset had beautiful colors...too bad that new hotel/condo building blocks the view from the Post Corner.  It'll be better viewed later in the winter when the sun moves farther north or the earth moves farther south, or whatever!

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Good day

This was another beautiful day in Florida...the weather was perfect!  I love these days - cool (upper 70's), low humidity, and abundant sunshine!

We started our day off with coffee and our monthly HOA meeting.  Then we had the rest of the day free because League Shuffle was here so we couldn't have fun shuffle.  So I took off and got my hair cut.  Dave and Bob worked on putting down blocks around their house.  Later this afternoon, I fixed a wonderful dish for supper.  It was chicken mozzarella with penne pasta and sun dried tomatoes...delicious!  We invited Bob & Ann over to share it with us and they really liked it, too.  It's a keeper recipe!

Lulu and I beat Ann & Lorraine tonight at 7s.

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Tuesday

Had a good day, or relatively good any way.  I tried to bowl, but I just hurt so badly that I only bowled one and a half games and then dropped out.  I even wore my Tens Unit but I couldn't deliver the ball correctly so I said I'd had enough.

Tonight at bingo, I only won $5 and I spent $10, so not so good...but I still won!  I was close in several games but no cigar!

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Sunday

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood!  We went to church this morning...sermon was great.  The music today was great, too.  Mostly all carols that we knew!

This afternoon we had massages and now we're both fighting to stay awake!

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Saturday

Oh my...we just got home from a West Coast Players production called "Every Christmas Story Ever Told" or something to that effect.  It was so funny!  It was a parody of every Christmas movie, book, song ever told!!  There were only 3 actors who played a multitude of characters!  I'm still smiling!

We got the front windows washed outside today and then Dave put our screens on.  We had the windows open all day with a beautiful breeze coming in.  When I got home I turned on the air cause it's up to 78 in here.

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Friday

It was cool here today - finally got a bit of a break from the heat.  Even with the cool air, it was still 75 degrees...which is perfect for me!  Bob & Ann & us went to The Legion for lunch.  It was a bit windy, but not uncomfortable...none of us wore jackets and Dave was the only one with long sleeves.  Dave's cousin and her husband (Nancy & Charlie) joined us.  Fun times.

Tonight at cards, Ann and I were partners and we just couldn't get the cards.  We ended up about 1500 points short!

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Exhausted!

Dave and I are both exhausted.  In fact, tonight we've just sat in our chairs - no tv, no noise, nothing!  Bryan, Erin, and Aidan left here at 5:20 AM to go to the airport.  They're back in Iowa after about a week here in the warmth!  They had a great time at Disney.  Aidan loved the rides they took him on...of course, he's not big enough for many of the rides, but Dumbo was his favorite.  Bryan said he loved the "characters" too.  I miss his cute little face!

Speaking of cute faces...here are all 4 of our grandchildren and their cute faces!

We put up most of our Christmas decorations today.  Tomorrow we'll have to finish and get some pix tomorrow night!

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Tuesday

I fixed tenderloins for the family on Monday night...they are always a big hit!  The kids love them the way Grandma Peg makes them!  We had picked up Danny at school at 2:00 and then picked up Megan because she needed to go to the orthodontist for some repair on her braces.  By the time Jami got home about 5:45 the tenderloins were cooking and dinner was about ready to serve.  The kids then went kind of bonkers!  You'd have thought there was a full moon out!

Today we got up early and headed across Alligator Alley to go to Sanibel Island and to Captiva Island.  What a beautiful area.  We went to the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuse and drove around the islands just seeing the sights.  We bought $1,96 gas on the way out of Ft Myers and then got on the road to Clearwater.  It was not to be a quick trip, however, as there was congestion before we got to Sarasota and just after Sarasota.  Both incidences caused us to be stopped for several minutes and slowed down immensely.  Then when we got on 19 at Ulmerton, we were stopped again!  This congestion caused us to do stop-and-go traffic for a long time.  It took us an hour to go what normally takes 15 minutes!  Our traffic didn't get better until we got to The Ranch!  It's been a long day!

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